Friday, December 10, 2010

Socialism for Dummies

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK,

we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan."

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

11 Comments:

I recall reading this in the recent past and enjoyed it then too. While reading this again though, I noticed that the professor stated:"All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A".

Perhaps the bolded portion should be edited to state: "No isolated student would fail".

That's the problem: you're putting it too simply for it to be valid. This is not at all a sufficient method of exemplifying the workings of socialism. In fact...what the professor did there isn't socialism in any shape or form: but rather a mistakingly watered down version of one simple concept taken out of proportion. If you want to know something about socialism, do a little research. Ignorance doesn't get anywhere. That professor is obviously ignorant as well.

The Anonymous Comment at 10:10am is somewhat correct. You only forgot that the professor would take a few grades for himself or his cronies. Not sure why but that's what politicians do. If the students were upset and tried to change things they would be beat down, killed or thrown into rehabilitation camps. Oh the joys of socialism.

To see the end result of Marxism in the real world, look at Cuba or North Korea.

While their dictators are billionairs, the common folk are eating grass and bark off the trees.

I guess we have forgotten that socialism collapsed in the USSR. Eventually they run out of other people's money to spend on themselves.

Thomas Sowell concludes in his book "Marxism" that its benifit to humankind can be summed up as an absolute zero. Its immediate effect is mass famine and a return to a limited capitalism is necessary to keep the starving people from rebelling.

Thanks, but no thanks. Those that want to live under the hammer and sickle should go live in Cuba or North Korea where things are done their way.

Besides, the experiment describes a test of communism which is socialism taken to the extreme. Obama's "socialism" 1) is not Obama's and 2) is "socialism" only in a VERY limited sense; i.e. the Left for the most part supports only a few limited social programs and these do NOT guarantee disaster. If they did, most countries in Europe would have failed decades ago.

The only reason people in the US think these ideas mean doom is because they are gullible enough to believe without skepticism the right-wing's press -- much like they buy without question the myth of the economics professor.

Anonymous at 12:34(last one)You are the very guy,person I've been looking for.I've been wanting to form a better opinion of Socialism so I could understand all the hoopla.You sound like you have the answer to this right wing opinion I currently suffer from.All I have ever asked is for someone to expound a convincing argument so I can quit fearing this red threat and embrace it. God knows I need to hear something positive these days. Thanks man!

Quoting a previous post: "the Left for the most part supports only a few limited social programs and these do NOT guarantee disaster. If they did, most countries in Europe would have failed decades ago."

Ummm, guessing you have not looked at Greece or Ireland recently which are only afloat because they got huge loans from the IMF which put them even deeper in debt. Socialism has failed in Europe because it is unsustainable. Here we call the same thing "entitlements" and they are unsustainable in the current form. It is time to ditch the IRS and stop stealing from the rich to build unsustainable entitlements in this country and start taxing every dollar, good or service that crosses the border - that alone makes it where the citizens can keep their entire paycheck, businesses can grow and the left get to keep entitlements that are suddenly sustainable. It also enforces a fair trade and allows the United States to manufacture something other than dollars.

Greece is not Europe. If you want to argue that European Socialism has failed, then you need to demonstrate that Germany, France, Belgium, etc. have all failed too. "Socialism has failed in Europe" just aint true.

Sure, Europe just like the rest of the world is suffering an economic slump right now, but this has little to do with "Socialism" and a whole LOT to do with banks and the finance industry behaving badly. I.e. the Capitalists created this mess not "Socialism".

Finally, the notion that taxes at rates levied now or in the past few decades in the US are harmful to business and the economy is just bunk:

Take a look at GDP growth from ~1960 to the present. Over this time marginal income tax rates on the rich changed from very high (>70%) to record lows under W. Guess which decade in this period had the SLOWEST overall GDP growth rate -- despite record low tax rates and abundant money generated by a massive bubble in housing. Then notice that GDP growth in earlier decades is imperceptibly affected by significant changes in the tax regime.

Simply put, tax rates are a small factor in the performance of business and the economy.